Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 1 Man Utd 2 in the 2025-2026 Premier League at Anfield…
LIVERPOOL create an enormous amount of chances, hit the woodwork three times, deal with an appalling referee and concede from a set-piece late.
It is, inarguably, not good enough. It is nowhere near good enough. Liverpool are playing extended periods of matches like they have never met and it really isn’t good enough despite what we get in snatches.
The problem is the snatches are good enough to earn draws and wins. The snatches are glimpses of what could be. Brief glimpses of how this could be overwhelming. They are the greatest garnish.
But they aren’t meat and potatoes and right now Liverpool don’t have enough of either. Right now the garnish is great but football matches don’t work that way.
There is a counter argument: in the last four games Liverpool have had hard lines with the first goal. And they have. They have. But to which I say:
And what?
You get hard lines. Firstly, you don’t need to embrace them. Secondly, you have a lot of time to fix them.
Thirdly, crucially – it keeps happening. Have a look inward.
No one is great for their opener and I include the referee. That the game continues is madness. That Liverpool’s MO isn’t to bring it to a halt and then get in his face is madder still.
The first-half’s key moment is Bruno Fernandes’s miss. It should go two and instead Liverpool get off the hook. Yet they conspire over and over to end up on the back foot. Around 26, Mamardashvili plays a good forward ball but Cody Gakpo and Alexis Mac Allister get in each other’s way and find themselves watching on as United create a chance.
We get to half-time and probably should be level but we aren’t and then we are suddenly very good. The game is a Liverpool game and United are being stretched but the goal doesn’t come. Liverpool are pitching their tent but the goal doesn’t come.
The worst miss is Mo Salah’s. On the angle, on his right foot. But it goes over the bar and United hang on.
The equaliser has been coming but then their goal feels like you can see it from space. And then we are back to banging on a door and staring at an abyss.
United are weird. They aren’t good but by Christ they are game. They keep going in every scenario. They believe in this manager.
You could scream at Liverpool and you probably did. This match finishes with a pass across the front of Manchester United’s goal and three of our players could connect foot with ball and very possibly score and do not dare do so. They lack confidence and trust. Trust and confidence. The foundation. It needs to be rebuilt.
What is hard with the rebuilding is we are now at the point where new signings and less senior lads are within their rights to wonder what is going on and how they get starts. Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez, Curtis Jones, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike would all be within their rights to be knocking on the manager’s office door tomorrow. Ibou Konate, Alexis Mac Allister and Mo Salah are all just not where they need to be.
Jones, Wirtz and Ekitike all displayed what they could be about when they came on. They also all looked like they had an understanding, making them genuinely unique amongst the current Liverpudlian configuration. Jones constantly knows where Ekitike and Wirtz are. He was bright as a button and Wirtz was exactly the player advertised.
Does this mean the manager was wrong?
Well, maybe, yes. I understand that our assertions against his reality favour us. What we say in boozers or put in WhatsApp groups or say on podcasts doesn’t need to be tested with reality. It’s true: being a gobshite is easy, being a football manager is hard.
But it is never harder than when every decision feels debatable and right now this is where he is. This is the impact of the summer. I can look at six roles today and wonder if he could do something different and that doesn’t include Salah. This isn’t good news for a side.
Nothing currently is terminal: for the league season, for the talismanic forward, for the manager, for Ibou Konate. The sky is not falling in, however much you may currently feel like you are being smashed by clouds without silver linings.
But it is important not to let a season get away from you and we’ve seen that in the past. It’s important to be able to be alright, and this is the current concern. Liverpool can’t be alright for half an hour. There was maybe half an hour against Everton where they were. Apart from that watching The Reds is like dunking your head into cold water and trying to bite an apple. It is bracing and overwhelming and occasionally you get an apple.
There needs to be more apples right now. But then it also needs to be less bracing. Football matches need assurance. Liverpool need assurance. We need assurance.
Let me tell you a secret: it isn’t coming. Not yet. These are the days of variance.
But still, it isn’t good enough. You know it, I know it, Virgil van Dijk knows it, Arne Slot knows it.
I need more than snatches.
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Seeing Slot pick his favourites week in week out then panicking when things are going tits up is just terrible. Slow and ponderous play is simply not the Liverpool way Arne, it’s not what we want our team to be about. Measured play is fine, but the aimless recycling before play breaks down is boring and unproductive. Play those who deserve to play like Ekitike and Chiesa, and for God’s accept that Kerkez isn’t ready and Bradley needs to play as our first choice right back, not the carousel we have at the moment.
Generally like your writing Neil, but I think you’ve been extremely charitable here. The meat and potatoes were clearly sh**e, but the garnish was thin as f*** too.